The Titanic Timeline

-Thomas Henry Ismay purchases White Star Line, a collection of sailing vessels originally founded in 1850. The line was originally centered on Australian goldfields.

1869-1870

-Ismay forms the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company in order to make White Star Line a passenger steamship service.

-The first passenger ships for are built by the Harland & Wolff shipyard.

1891

-J. Bruce Ismay becomes a partner of White Star line and takes over White Star Lines after his father’s death in 1899.

1894

-William J. Pirrie becomes chairman of Harland & Wolff.

1902

-White Star Line is purchased by the International Mercantile Marine Company, a trust headed by American J. Pierpont Morgan. The ships still fly the British flag but are now controlled by American interests.

1904

-A 41 J. Bruce Ismay is made director of the International Mercantile Marine Company with the full support of J.P. Morgan. Harland & Wolff chairman J. Pirrie also becomes a director of International Mercantile Marine.

1907

-Ismay discusses the construction of two large cruise ships with one to be added later. These ships were intended to compete with other luxury lines. Intended to outcompete the Cunard Line, they were to be known as the Olympic class of liners.

1908

-White Star approves the Olympic class liners. The ships are scheduled to be built by the Harland & Wolff shipyard under the direct supervision of Lord Pirrie with the assistance of his nephew Thomas Andrews.

-A contract is signed for construction in the Belfast shipyard for the Olympic, Titanic, and a third ship to follow. All design decisions are made by J. Bruce Ismay. The size of the ships needed a special gantry in order to support their weight.

-Keel is laid down for Harland & Wolff number 400 and the construction of the Olympic begins.

1910

-Olympic hull is launched

1911

-Titanic hull is launched in front of 100,000 viewers and becomes the largest man-made object ever moved. Twenty tons of tallow, soap, and train oil were used to grease the slipway bed in order to protect the hull.

-Olympic makes her maiden voyage.

-White Star and Harland & Wolff agree on the date of the Titanic’s maiden voyage – March 20, 1912.

-Titanic’s maiden voyage is postponed after the Olympic collides with the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Hawke. The postponement occurs due to workers needing to focus on Olympic repairs.

-White Star announces the new date for the Titanic maiden voyage in the London Times – April 10, 1912.

1912

-Sixteen lifeboats are installed on the Titanic. Additional lifeboats are suggested as an economic decision rather than a safety concern and are ultimately passed on. Outdated British Board of Trade regulations made the Titanic’s 20 lifeboats actually exceed safety regulations by ten percent.

-Titanic is successfully dry-docked and at Belfast’s Thompson Graving Dock.

-Engineering crew begins to assemble in Belfast, many of which were living on the ship itself.

-March 31 – Except for minor details in staterooms, the Titanic outfitting is finished. She has more staterooms than the Olympic despite being the same size which makes her heavier. The Titanic is the biggest ship in the world.

-April 2 - Sea trials begin. All equipment is tested including her wireless. Speed and handling are tested and involve a variety of turns as well as starting and stopping exercises. The Titanic passes the tests and meets Board of Trade standards.

-April 3 – Titanic arrives at Southampton after staffing and provisioning for her maiden voyage.

-April 5 – The ship is ‘dressed’ with flags and pennants to salute the people of Southampton. This marks the only time that the ship is dressed.

-April 8 – Final preparations are made for the Titanic’s maiden voyage.

-8:00 am – Entire crew mustered followed by a lifeboat drill with lifeboats 11 and 15.

-9:30 am – 11:30 am – Second and third class guests arrive and board the Titanic.

-11:30 am – First class shuttle arrives from London and first class passengers are escorted to their cabins.

-12:00 pm – Titanic casts off and is towed from its dock by tugboats. Departure is delayed for an hour after a near collision. Water displacement from the Titanic causes all six of its mooring ropes to break.

-1:00 pm – The Titanic resumes its course toward Cherbourg, France.

-4:00 pm – 5:30 pm – Shuttle boat in Cherbourg is delayed and Cherbourg passengers wait to be ferried out to the Titanic.

- 7:30 pm – Three iceberg warnings intercepted from the Californian while the captain is attending a dinner party. Ice is reported to be 50 miles ahead.

- 9:40 pm – Heavy ice pack and iceberg warnings received from the Mesaba. Message is overlooked as wireless operators are busy handling passenger traffic. All ice warnings throughout the day point to heavy ice traffic 78 miles ahead.

- 10:55 pm – The Californian is stopped in the middle of an ice field and sends out warnings to all ships in the area. A call from the Californian to the Titanic is cut short after the Titanic wireless operator tells him to ‘Shut up’ and ‘Keep out’. The wireless operator for the Californian listens to the Titanic’s wireless until 11:30 pm and then retires for the night.

- 11:30 pm – Lookouts Fleet and Lee spot a haze from the crow’s nest directly ahead of the Titanic.

- 11:40 pm – Lookouts see an iceberg dead ahead towering 55-60 feet above the water. They sound the warning and sixth officer Moody relays the message to Murdoch who orders the watertight containers to be closed. The helmsman spins the wheel as far as it will go and the ship begins to veer port. The iceberg strikes the starboard side of the Titanic.

- 12:00 am – 24 feet above the keel, water begins to take on enough water to make mail bags float. Thomas Andrews calculates that the ship will only be able to stay afloat for two and a half hours.

- April 15

- 12:05 am – The crew is ordered to ready the lifeboats and get passengers and crew assembled on deck.

- 12:10 am – 1:50 am – Several members of the Californian, which is about 10-19 miles away attempt to signal the Titanic with a Morse lamp. Rockets are observed but do not look like distress signals and no concern is taken. The two ships drift out of view.

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The Sad Story

Under the command of Edward Smith, the ship leaved Southampton with 2224 passengers aboard, including some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of poor emigrants from Europe seeking a new life in North America. The ship had advanced safety features, but there were not enough lifeboats to accommodate all of those aboard. Only 1,178 people can be carried in lifeboats.

Four days into the crossing and about 375 miles (600 km) south of Newfoundland, she hit an iceberg at 11:40 pm ship's time. The glancing collision caused Titanic's hull plates to buckle inwards along her starboard side and opened five of her sixteen watertight compartments to the sea; the ship gradually filled with water. Meanwhile, passengers and some crew members were evacuated in lifeboats, many of which were launched only partly loaded.

By 2:20 AM, the giant ship broke apart and foundered, with over 1000 people still aboard. Just under two hours after the sinking, the Cunard liner RMS Carpathia arrived and brought aboard about 705 survivors.

Small Numbers

74: The number of years it took to find the wreck of the Ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

64 : The number of lifeboats supposed to be aboard the ship.

20 : The number of lifeboats she actually carried.

65: Maximum capacity of a lifeboat.

28 : The number of people on board the first lifeboat.

2 : The number of workers killed during the construction process.

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Who doesn’t know about Titanic? The famous British ship that was designed to be unsinkable, but it finally sank on 15 April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg during its long trip from Southampton, UK to New York City, US. About 1,500 people died, and the largest ship made at the time led to one of the biggest disasters in modern history.